Seminar. The Spatiality and Everydayness of Wartime Khartoum, with Sara Hagalhassan (Cairo, July 15, 2026)

Title: Home as Battlespace: The Spatiality and Everydayness of Wartime Khartoum
Speaker: Sara Hagalhassan (British Institute in Eastern Africa (BIEA))
Date: Wednesday 15th of July, 2026
Time: 2 pm – 4 pm (Cairo Time)
Location: CEDEJ, 23 Gamal Al Din Abou Al Mahasen, Qasr El Nil, Cairo, Egypt + visioconference
Conditions: Free admission. No registration required. To receive the webinar connection details, please contact us at: contact@cedejkhartoum.fr

Based on interviews with residents who remained in Khartoum during the first months of the war and feminist geographic approaches that position the home as a deeply political space, this talk examines domesticity as a key lens through which to analyse the lived experience of violence and destruction, exploring how warfare reconfigures everyday practices, social relations, and the materiality of dwelling.

Abstract
Since the outbreak of war in Sudan in April 2023, homes across Khartoum have become central sites through which violence is experienced, negotiated, and endured. As clashes between the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) expanded extensively into residential neighbourhoods, domestic spaces were transformed through extensive shelling, occupation, looting, infrastructural collapse, and the constant threat of destruction.

Drawing on the feminist geographic approaches that recognize the home as an inherently, intensely, and deeply political site, this research builds on interviews with residents who lived through the first months of the war in Khartoum to explore the experience of remaining at home amid ongoing conflict. It also examines how domestic spaces are reconfigured, reinterpreted, and inhabited as essential targets of warfare progression and tactics. It approaches home through three interconnected dimensions, form, meaning, and everyday practices, to explore how warfare reshapes the material and social life of the home.

About the contributor
Sara Hagalhassan is an interdisciplinary spatial researcher and human geographer. She is currently a research consultant at the BIEA and a research associate at CEDEJ-Khartoum. Sara obtained her Bachelor of Architecture from the University of Khartoum (2018) and a master’s degree in Urbanisation and Development from the London School of Economics (2023). Her research focuses on urban violence and migration in East African cities with a particular focus on Sudan’s.

— 

Image : The only standing door, Sudan, 2025, Shaaiixx – CC BY-SA 4.0. Via Wikimedia.

admin

Voir tous les articles